I was trying to organise this for the last two weeks, but it appeared that every time I tried to do it, someone shat their pants (not me) and I was seconded to clean up.

It happens a LOT.

So as I said, I was thinking we should cruise out to Mannum. Ross and I went out there the other week to meet Bellett enthusiast Laurie Stanton who is not overly 'net savvy and hadn't heard of Bellett.net.

So what I'm proposing is a trip to Mannum for lunch at the pub by the river there. it's a good spot although it's about as far away as you'd want to go, people like RobSA, 2lDOHC and Bellett.Boys have driven a lot further in their Belletts! Good on them!

Details:

Meeting place:Thornton Park Reserve, Hamilton Terrace, Paradise(have only visited there on Google; looks fine to park for a bit and gather the masses)TIME: 10:30am for 11:00am-ish take off

I reckon we cruise through to Mannum straight up; we'll get there about 12:00-12:30 and have some lunch at the pub, then we'll take off back towards Birdwood and can probably meet up with the Gemini crew before they leave the vicinity. We'll be near Birdwood around 3:00-3:30pm

This way, our new mate Laurie can cruise back with us to Birdwood as well (he's from near Mannum).

So that's the dealio!!!

How does that float your respective boats?

Sorry for late notice! I have confirmed me, GToo and Ross 2lDOHC. Any other takers!?

Hope to see ya' there anyway, Rob. I'm sure there are some spare seats.

So I guess from Thornton Park it's straight up Gorge road, on to Birdwood, then right on to Adelaide-Mannum road. That IS a specky trek.

Oh, btw......little Bluie has also done some major distances some years ago. It used to travel to from the lower Flinders to Adelaide on a regular basis in the mid 90's. Also went on a 6,500 km round trip to Queensland on our honeymoon. And that was with the first dodgy motor rebiuld in the early 90's. Zero oil pressure and 70 to 90 MPH on Hay Plains, only started knocking close to home again but never failed majorly Tough little suckers.

Sounds good, I'll change our start time to a bit later in the day so that we'll be arriving at Birdwood around 2-2:30pm. Should be a good gathering of Isuzus with a D-Max and possibly a Piazza in our group.

sorry i cant make it, no rego on the little beast at the moment! also the day after the work dinner so im not sure i would be able to drive the rat as it should be driven!I will have the beast registered after christmas at some stage so will look forward to catching up with you all then sometime!

planning on historic rego one day! but for the florian, might be using the bellett as a daily again for a while! also i would need to change the wheels on it, would they let wide 13" steelies slide through on historic!

Same thing "Flibbs", gotta look into historic rego as normal reg is stretching the very average budget at the moment. The savings could go toward a road trip or next Nats or something similar, possibly reapolstering the original front seats, etc...

There's gotta be a spare seat if you're thinking of doing the trip on Sunday.

Funny you mention the Community Club at Mannum, Dave. Only yesterday we had a gas fitter doing repairs on our oven. Turns out he's a car enthusiast and has many pommy 60's sports cars in his stable. Apart from appreciating a look at my GT, I told him of the cruise to Mannum. His reply was "If you're having lunch there go to the RSL club" I think this is the Community Club you and Laurie were refering to. Apparently the meals are tops, affordable and the view over the river is great.

Oh yeah, brochures please. Don't get to see any in the flesh. I will be "scrubbing in" like for surgery

Just posting a couple of pics from Sunday's cruise up to Mannum. It was a small affair but intimate and a lot of fun so a bit thank you to everyone who turned up and supported the Isuzu cause

I'll leave Dave to give the in depth break down of the day but suffice to say it was a great day out. Unfortunately my '69 sedan failed to proceed with brake issues however Dave was kind enough to throw me the keys to the Florian. I really enjoyed the day out in it and only tried to kill Bruno with the front of it once in the hills! I'll say one thing, it's got GREAT brakes!

The day started out fairly overcast but by the time we were sitting in the Community center in Mannum it was a picture perfect day over looking the park where the West End advertisements are shot... and surprisingly not a mullet in sight

Thanks to all the guys who came out and a well done to Ant for organising the rendezvous with the Gemini cruise at Birdwood as it is no mean feat to get two cruises at the same place and the same time!

Oh, and great to see a Piazza out on the run with the Gems. Nice one!

Cheers,Ross.

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File comment: Lauries 66 sedan which was being restored as he drove it around. Great interior and ran like a clock.2011-12-11 12.33.32_resized.jpg [ 910 KiB | Viewed 13487 times ]

File comment: Deluxe badge on Lauries 66 and before you say 'that's wrong!' we know, and he knows. Just breathe...2011-12-11 12.34.23_resized.jpg [ 555.56 KiB | Viewed 13487 times ]

Hey thanks for the pics Ross, and thanks to all who came along. And thanks to Dave & Laurie for sorting out the arrangements for the day.

My youngest had a great (albeit long) day, particularly when he could see other Belletts on the road in front, something none of us see enough of! Plus he liked going to the Murray and seeing the houseboats, as you could tell during lunch.

It was nice to be able to stick together as a group, unlike the B2B. I reckon we start a rule for future cruises... If you want to have a fang for a minute or two en route that's fine, mash the loud pedal and enjoy your car, but then drop back and bunch up again. I think we all enjoy watching each other's cars on the road; so share the love dude, especially since between cruises we seldom if ever spot another Bellett in motion. And these things look their absolute best in motion!

Let's do it again soon while the weather is good. And don't hold it against me for using the word 'dude', dudes.

Guys, that looks like a GREAT gathering of the throng!!Pity there is not more of it!!Hopefully after the NSW NRMA Motorfest we will have the same type of photos, with about 5 QLDER'S coming down for Motorfest we will arrange a drive also!!The phot of the Beletts and the Gemini's, WHAT A BEAUTY!!Thanks Guys, have a great Christmas from the NSW throng, stay safe and drive carefully over the break!!Dave M.

Hey we didn't get broken up; I even stopped and blocked that dude in the Citroen DS23 until you guys caught up several minutes later (ok, about 25 seconds).

The RatterBellett is a freak show though; with nary more than the addition of an extra rear leaf (and nothing else i know about; everything was done prior to me buying it), the damned thing handles so well.... for the last two years I've been running 155 section whitewall tyres on it which aren't really the best in the world for handling, despite looking awesome.

So with the 185s on the Watanabe alloys, the handling was insane; the damned thing would go around the twisties like nothing on earth with nary a chirp or a protest from the tyres.

Once I get another GT, the wheels will go on that and the 155s will go back on the Ratter, so next time we cruise and I'm in the Rat, it won't be so hard to keep up!

I took much the same photos that Ross did, so here are a few from any other angles I could think of.

Bruno is always front and centre for Bellett cruises in his blue Bellett GT1600. Here it is with my RatBellett after we rocked up at the meeting place near Gorge Road, Paradise.

We met up with fellow Bellett enthusiast (but computer non-user) Laurie down at Mannum. He's got a tidy 1966.5 Bellett auto. Fairly original vehicle! His registration number is a recreation of the original registration he had on his Bellett 1500 manual he bought new back in the 1960s!

We had an AWESOME lunch at the Mannum Community Club; plus best of all we could see all our cars lined up. There was a dirty great big Navara and boat trailer in the park on the RH side... I'm no photoshop expert but it's not there anymore!

Brett pointed out that this is pretty much every Isuzu passenger (ie non-commercial) ever sold in Australia; Bellett, Florian, Gemini and Piazza. Pity there were no early-shape TX-TD Geminis, but technically the later TE-TG shape is more Isuzu, having been styled by them I believe with some direction from Holden's Leo Preaneu (sp???), while the TX-TD was styled by the Germans for the Kadett and then modified by Isuzu. So yeah. Man, Piazzas have got some serious freaking front overhang!

We'll need to do another cruise early-midway through 2012; we'd kind of done two a year, but this year we only did the one.

I was always resistant to including the Geminis; Gemini enthusiast are a bit different to Bellett guys (generally younger, for a start), however as more of the bogans are weeded out of Geminis, we're starting to see a hardcore enthusiast base that are Gemini and ergo Isuzu enthusiasts, rather than Gemini and Holden enthusiasts. I'm a long-term Gemini owner myself but most Gemini cruises I went on were hoon-tinged blatfests.

I can't guarantee we'll always meet up with them or include them; perhaps on the December run or something, because of one main reason; because all Belletts are fundamentally the same shape, they look awesome cruising together not broken up by other shape cars (eg Geminis), however I can see the need to include those guys as well because as you can see, there's only a finite amount of either of us!

Been a long week, what with fires, bung hire machinery, and rebound sinus congestion. But "Fang'n to Mannum" has been a bunch of great memories to get me through.

Yeah, seeing Isuzus in action front and rear is awesome. Paul's GT demonstrating a rigid smoothness through the corners in front, and the Flori being stretched to it's capacity in the rear vision. Yet I've got more faith in YOUR abilities, Ross, than said brakes in the Florian.....who put that stop sign there !?!

Sorry about the blast past Paul, I should have been more considerate. But with a nice flat straight ahead and the Bluey at nay one third pedal at 100 k, there was little "mashing" in it The only thing on my mind was DON'T LET THAT RAT GET AWAY!! It was great to let her stretch the legs for a while and catch up to the Ginsu Province Taxi, from behind looking like it was driven by some crazed Yettie

Laurie and his wife are a barn find in themselves It's great to meet yet others who have loved their Belletts over the ages. We can only imagine the thrill for them to watch the squadron arrive.

Anyway, here are the pics as good as I can get them through a 6 meg. Featuring the taxi, looking sooo phatt the wheels could only fit into the rear arches with a one paper to spare. The GT's oozing spunk as they do, and the imaculate presentation of AJ's sedan.Also worth mentioning we ALL had one special passenger.

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